KitLocate features low battery consumption by using proprietary algorithms that allow location-based apps to request the device’s geographic coordinates less frequently without losing too much precision.

Yandex will use KitlLocate’s technology for car navigation and maps and also is interested in the Israel start-ups cloud solution.

KitLocate consists of eight people, whose Tel Aviv offices will become Yandex R & D headquarters, with the probability of more engineers being added by the new owners.

The Priceline online ticketing and reservation company has bought Israeli-based start-up Qlika for around $3 million, according to the VentureBeat website.

Qlika, based in the metropolitan Tel Aviv city of Ramat Gan, focuses on “micro-location” ad campaigns and has only six employees, all of whom have masters’ degrees in physics and mathematics and who have served several years in the IDF’s technological units.

They will join Priceline in supporting the Singapore-based discount booking travel website Agoda which Priceline bought seven years ago.

The person who confirmed the deal told VentureBeat, “It’s a small deal, the $3 million number is roughly accurate.” The website said the acquisition indicates that companies are trying to keep smartphone users attached to their screens by targeting them with advertisements.

Olika’s website says it uses a”micro-market” advertising approaches that are used by companies that sell advertising packages to local clients like local search agencies and yellow pages firms.

The company also says its process works with national brands, allowing franchises to initiate their particular personalize ad campaign and share it with other branches.

Amid the buzz surrounding issues of religious-secular tension—such as proposed Israeli legislation to mandate Haredi enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces and a recent rally where hundreds of thousands of people protested the bill—Haredi entrepreneurship in the Jewish state doesn’t receive the attention it deserves.

Critics lament the lack of Haredi integration into both the military and the Israeli workforce, but Beit Shemesh, located 20 miles west of Jerusalem with a population of 100,000 people, is home to innovators like Rabbi Joel Padowitz, whose ventures have a direct relationship with the Haredi community.

Padowitz, 36, is co-creator of what he believes is a “game-changing” product for Israeli tourism and business called the “Israel App.” Originally from San Diego, Padowitz made aliyah in 2009 and lives in Beit Shemesh with his wife and six children. He teaches Mishnah every day at a men’s kollel in Beit Shemesh, is an avid mountain biker, and is the founder of a Manhattan-based investment bank. He has rabbinical ordination and an MBA from Bar-Ilan University, and he now is now pursuing a BA in social science from Harvard University.

The co-founder and manager of the Israel App is equally eclectic 28-year-old Yaakov Lehman, formerly from Tucson, Ariz., who is married with a newborn child. A part-time rabbinic student and part-time social entrepreneur, he has a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in global studies, an MA from the London School of Economics in economic history, and an MA from the University of Vienna in world history. He came to Israel in 2008.

“The reason I founded the Israel App is because people come to Israel and do not get a legitimate or even meaningful presentation of this incredible country,” Padowitz tells JNS.org. “We cater to the majority of tourists who don’t hire human tour guides. We want to give them a way to appreciate more deeply all that Israel has to offer.”

The Israel App, which currently has about 6,000 users, contains GPS-guided tours for any tourist who needs to find sites or hotels or restaurants, a virtual concierge for making reservations, coupons, and background content like an “Israepedia,” a glossary covering a wide variety of historical information. Tourists can use the app without roaming charges as they travel around the country.

When Padowitz and Lehman initiated their project, they began looking for a programming team. They happened upon NetSource and its subsidiary, Concept Creative Technology, a service provider of software development. “We liked the service, the price, and their work environment,” says Lehman.

NetSource’s 48-year-old CEO, Mazal Shirem, is a divorced mother of three who grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem, where she lived until the age of 20. After 16 years with Intel and a stint in Munich, Germany, she found a business partner for her new venture whose mission “was to get Orthodox people into the employment market and give them the tools they need to learn the work environment.”

NetSource was launched in 2010 and today employs 200 people—90 percent Haredi women and 5 percent Haredi men—almost all living in Beit Shemesh. According to Shirem, the company operates so that the employees “receive the full respect of their lifestyle, including the on-site kosher kitchen, flexible work hours, and even proper subjects on which they work.”

Tamar, a 26-year-old Haredi mother of a two toddlers, is consulting with Shirem in her office. She started work there a year and a half ago as a secretary and worked her way up to an account manager.

“I really like to work here,” she says. “The girls are very nice and it’s convenient for me to work in this company because I find all the conditions which I need in order for me to go out and do my job in an appropriate environment.”

Jerusalem Ventures Partners (JVP). Israel’s leading VC firm and the largest early-stage cyber-security investor in Israel, announced Wednesday that Titanium Core, an innovative startup that protects mission-critical infrastructure, has won JVP’s first ever “Cybertition” cyber-security startup competition.

JVP will reward Titanium with an instant $1 million Investment and a spot in JVP Cyber Labs incubator based in the growing cyber epicenter in Beer Sheva.

The company was founded by Prof. Yuval Elovici, the head of the Cyber Security Lab at Ben-Gurion University. Titanium Core utilizes a multilayered security approach to repel attacks on mission-critical systems, while simultaneously preventing the threat from moving on to other computer systems and providing real time information on the attack.

“Our patented technology can provide an unbreakable security layer around core, mission-critical systems,” said Mimram, Co-Founder and CTO of Titanium Core. “This funding along with the guidance of the Cyber Labs incubator will allow us to bring our vision to market and ensure that this technology can be utilized to protect the world’s critical IT assets.”

JVP’s first Cybertition judging committee included JVP Partners and analysts along with top executives from leading multinational corporations such as GE, Cisco, Microsoft, EMC-RSA and Lockheed Martin, as well as Israel’s Chief Scientist.

The launching of the CyberSpark national cyber complex in Be’er Sheva this week prepares the way for what the “capital of the Negev” hopes will turn the city into Israel’s next Silicon Valley.

Lockheed Martin and IBM formally announced that they will set up their research activities in the park, joining Deutsche Telekom and EMC.

More than 450 heads of industry and cyber security agencies from around the world attended Tel Aviv’s Cybertech 2014, where the announcements of CyberSpark were made. Among those attending were 50 people from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, and top officials from Checkpoint, IBM, Cisco, EMC and Kaspersky.

“Beer-Sheva will not only be the cyber capital of Israel but one of the most important places in the cyber security field in the world,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the opening of the conference.

CyberSpark is being billed as the only complex of its kind in the world that includes industry leaders, academic research, leading security agencies, educational facilities and human capital specializing in cyber security and national government agencies.

Their goal is to produce a complete eco-system which will contain all the components needed to create a global leader in the cyber field by the pooling of resources, shared technology infrastructure construction and synergy of specialists, researchers and students.

Lockheed Martin and EMC Corp. announced on Sunday an agreement to invest in cyber security and other technology projects based in the new Advanced Technologies Park at Ben Gurion University .

The official launch ceremony for the agreement will take place tomorrow in Tel Aviv on Monday at the CyberTech 2014 International Exhibition and Conference.

Both companies said that the initial investment will establish a vehicle through which EMC and Lockheed Martin can engage local expertise to develop new solutions and offerings for the companies to bring to market.

Under the arrangement, Lockheed Martin and EMC will identify a series of development opportunities that can be contracted to Ben Gurion University, using local technology talent/

“Israel’s entrepreneurial and academic communities offer a unique combination of talent, innovation and pioneering spirit,” said Dr. Orna Berry, vice president and general manager of EMC’s Israel Center of Excellence.

EMC currently employs more than 1,000 people in Israel and has invested billions of dollars in the country through the acquisition of nine Israeli companies.

Lockheed Martin’s presence in Israel was primarily focused on aerospace and defense endeavors, but Dr. John D. Evans, vice president international engineering and technology, explained, “Our goal is to foster applied research and continued growth in Israel’s technology sector.”

Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Davos Wednesday that she expects to visit Israel in July.

Meeting at the 014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the Prime Minister told her that whereas major powers were once measured in terms of territory, today they are measured by the number of unique users.

He presented the advantages of investing in Israeli technology, discussed the leading position of cyber technologies and asked what he could do to increase Yahoo’s investments in Israel.